# Books you've stayed up late to finish reading **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 11, 2009, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109 "2009-08-11T21:14:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/61 "2009-08-13T17:25:17Z")
> [@LawMonkey](#): > > _Watership Down_. Disclaimer: This is probably my favorite book of all time, so there may be some bias. That was going to be my answer as well. I got talked into reading it by a friend. A bunch of stupid rabbits? Well, it doesn’t play out quite that way in print. I was hooked. ---
**Author:** ![ajdebosco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@ajdebosco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ajdebosco)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/62 "2009-08-13T20:10:00Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > That book is like 150 pages long. Please tell me you were really young or started really late at night. 🙂 Right on both, KTK. My reading skills were around the third grade level before I started kindergarten, and when I was about eight or nine years old, I waited until my oldest sister fell asleep. She had been assigned that book for freshman English: I always kept a dictionary at hand to look up unfamiliar words, slowing things down a bit in those days. “Tell me the part about rabbits, George…” Great thread, gang, and thanks to a little research I discovered another trio of Arkady Renko novels, _Havana Bay, Wolves Eat Dogs, and Stalin’s Ghost_ by Martin Cruz Smith to get my eyes on. Might be a little groggy for a few mornings to come in the near future. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/63 "2009-08-13T20:15:35Z")
When I was a kid the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy kept me up late a few times. Then "The Sotweed Factor’. Then “Catch 22”. ---
**Author:** ![CAlex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/73ab20/32.png) [@CAlex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CAlex)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/64 "2009-08-13T21:44:30Z")
Mary Stewart’s; Crystal Cave, Hollow Hills and Last Enchantment - The first two especially kept me up. ---
**Author:** ![sweeteviljesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@sweeteviljesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweeteviljesus)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/65 "2009-08-14T03:18:19Z")
> [@JpnDude](#): > > The whole Time-Life series focusing on strange phenomena titled [Mysteries of the Unknown](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysteries_of_the_Unknown). I was in high school when the series came out in the late 80’s. I remember getting one book every couple of weeks and reading it all the way through into the night. Scared the SH\*T out of me, but I kept on! > > Remember the [eerie TV commercials](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNk6CCTWu8M) they played during that time? “‘…and was suddenly held aloft by a mysterious, unseen force…’-I don’t know about you, but around these parts we call that a ‘wedgie’” The only book I ever read in one sitting was Catcher in the Rye. I have stayed up until all hours reading lots of different books though. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/66 "2009-08-17T14:42:52Z")
Some great books mentioned so far - particularly _'Salem’s Lot, Replay, Lord of the Rings, The Time Traveler’s Wife, Rebecca_ and the Harry Potter saga. But as avid a reader as I am, the only book I’ve stayed up late to _finish_ was Arthur C. Clarke’s _2010: Odyssey Two_. I was in high school, got a copy and found myself absolutely engrossed. Even though it was a school night, I read until around 4am, got a few hours’ sleep before my first class, and then stumbled around the rest of the day with a goofy smile. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Skeezix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/aca169/32.png) [@Red\_Skeezix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Skeezix)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/67 "2009-08-17T22:14:02Z")
Whenever there’s a new Dresden Files/Codex Alera out, I’m reading till its done. When I was a teen: Starship Troopers, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, To Your Scattered Bodies Go. More recently:Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Speaker for the Dead, The last Dark Tower (I think I stayed up on this one, because I thought maybe it would get better.) ---
**Author:** ![choie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/choie/32/7829_2.png) [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/68 "2009-08-17T22:56:02Z")
Earlier this week I was having a panic attack (I get them sometimes, alas) and badly needed to distract myself. So I finally cracked open _The Hobbit_, which I’ve been saving ever since getting the book set earlier this summer, starting at around 11:30. Took me the rest of the night and into the dawn to read it. Distraction: accomplished! ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2009, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/69 "2009-08-18T01:42:54Z")
And you liked it, I hope? ---
**Author:** ![choie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/choie/32/7829_2.png) [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2009, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/70 "2009-08-18T04:28:06Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > And you liked it, I hope? Hee, yes, I’m sorry, I thought that was evident by my reading it all in one go. Yes, I liked it very much. Although I have to say … [spoiler]THE EAGLES AGAIN??? Are you freakin’ kidding me??? (Though technically it was _before_ the other Eagles ex Machina in ROTK, but man! I really wasn’t expecting Tolkien to have used that twice!) But otherwise yes, greatly enjoyed it, and I wasn’t expecting to like Bilbo as much as I did since I had bad vibes from him in the LOTR movies. And I was also surprised at how little Gollum was in it, and how there was no indication (other than vague mentions of a Necromancer) that there was some dire shit going down in this universe. Then again, this was like fifty or sixty years before LOTR opens, right? I guess none of the bad things were happening yet.[/spoiler] Sorry, now that I think about it, I probably should start that thread I was gonna start as I read through the books… Anyway, the quick answer is: yes, very much. ---
**Author:** ![ajdebosco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@ajdebosco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ajdebosco)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2009, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/71 "2009-08-18T17:57:41Z")
I’m struggling this afternoon to concentrate, and can’t wait to get back home to dive back into _Havana Bay_. Detective Renko has really done it this time, but Martin Cruz Smith took nearly two hundred pages of exposition in a land far distant from the polar setting the Russian Inspector has lived and worked previously. ---
**Author:** ![Absconditus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a88e4f/32.png) [@Absconditus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absconditus)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/72 "2009-08-19T06:26:13Z")
The first book I ever did this with was _Where the Red Fern Grows_, which, coincidentally is the first book I ever chose to read from beginning to end without being prompted to do so by teachers or parents. It remains the only book I’ve read to make me weep. (Admittedly, I got misty-eyed at the end of book 1 of _The Once and Future King_ when Ector kneels to Arthur and it’s the last thing in the world the boy wishes to have happen, but it wasn’t the same thing.) _WtRFG_ is also the book responsible for instilling enough faith in human goodness within me at a crucially formative age so I wouldn’t be motivated to pursue the destruction of the world, so there’s that. Finally, it’s also the reason I will forever prefer dogs over cats. Altogether, I must say it was an evening/ early morning span spent in the throes of astonishing productivity. Most recently, I stayed up to finish _Blood Meridian_, which, as can be surmised, was the polar opposite of the experience outlined in the above paragraph. By sunup, I found myself entrenched in a company of genuinely hellacious banditos, and all supped exclusively on the barbecued shins of innocent children, still alive and unseasoned from the knees up (Not really, of course; if you read the book, you’d understand, but be no less disturbed in your observation). Give a hoot! Read a book! ---
**Author:** ![Rala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@Rala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rala)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/73 "2009-08-19T08:43:49Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Harry Potter books 5, 6 and 7. Me too. _The Betrayal of Bindy McKenzie_ by Jaclyn Moriaty. I found it in my school library during the last week of the year. The librarian refused to let me check it out because everything was due back the next day anyway. I pleaded that I’d be finished by then, she relented and I stayed up until half past one to get it finished. _Doomsday Book_ by Connie Willis. The great thing about this one is that it’s long enough for me to race through at top speed and still take two or three days to finish it. _Seven Little Australians_ by Ethel Turner when I was twelve. Though to be fair, crying over the ending took up more time than actually finishing it did. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/74 "2009-08-19T21:46:02Z")
Two come to mind. The first is Truman Capote’s _In Cold Blood_. I had just finished studying for my college finals and I wanted to get a good night’s sleep so I asked my roommate for a book that I could doze off reading and he tossed me the Capote’s book. He said his sister had sent it to him and he hadn’t read it yet, but it would probably put me to sleep. I was still reading it as I walked to my take my tests the next morning. Hypnotizing book. The second is Stephen King’s _Dead Zone_. I had attepted to read a couple of King’s novels, and I had gotten through them and liked them OK, but \*Dead Zone \*really held my attention. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109.md?page=3)